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Bill # H.R.15

1/6/2009--Introduced.
National Health Insurance Act - Requires that medical services, hospital services, and other personal health services be made available to eligible individuals in all U.S. health-service areas as rapidly as possible. Sets forth minimum income requirements for eligibility.
Allows health care professionals and hospitals to enter into agreements to furnish services to eligible individuals.
Gives responsibility for administration of the benefits provided under this Act to local administrative committees or officers.
Allows a state to assume responsibility for administration of the personal health benefits provided under this Act.
Establishes: (1) the National Health Insurance Board in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); and (2) the National Advisory Medical Policy Council.
Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to determine the eligibility of any individual for benefits under this Act.
Limits benefits under this Act for an individual to only those services for which the individual is not eligible under Medicare.
Requires the Board to: (1) determine the sums to be made available for the provision of personal health-service benefits; and (2) allot amounts to each state based on population, available professional services and facilities, and the cost of compensation.
Allows the Board to make grants for the training of professionals providing benefits under this Act.
Amends the Internal Revenue Code to impose a value added tax of 5% on each sale of property, performance of services, and importation of property in the United States by a taxable person in a commercial-type transaction. Sets forth exceptions, including for food, housing, medical care, exports, interest, governmental entities, and certain tax-exempt organizations.
Establishes the National Health Care Trust Fund and appropriates to it amounts equal to the revenue received by the Treasury from such tax.
Requires the Secretary to study and report on the various methods to control the costs of providing personal health benefits under this Act.


Original Sponsor:
John Dingell (D-MI 15th)

Yelp, saw that one too. Wrote my rep.

This is a colossal mistake

Yeah, in Canada we have equal health care for all - mediocre. Unless you pay extra for one of the few private clinics, or go to the U.S. Ask our socialist opposition leader Jack Layton how he did it when he had a medical problem.

I sent a "Welcome" letter to Obama (I refuse to call him President) telling him that "socialized medicine" was a disaster in Canada and G.B. I talked with a friend from England and you wait forever to see a doctor and the doctors blow. People who can afford it go private.

This is just incredible to me. Everywhere socialism has been tried politically, it has blunted that country in every aspect except mediocrity...where they excel. Yet, in this country there is a continual push towards political and societal socialism.

I'm in the medical profession. The three legs on the stool of medical care could be said to be, " high quality, low cost, and unlimited access " (Cr. C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General).

This is what the proponents tell you we will have in the Nirvana of socialized care. Even in the private sector only two of the three are possible and there is the constant tension of trying to balance those out.

I can tell you based on tbe history of governments managing health care that all three legs will be missing in a socialized setting. Even the unlimited access (so-called) is a misnomer because there will be waiting lists for procedures which of course is really a from of RATIONING as folks die waiting for acute, intensive care or procedures. I.e. in GB if you are over 50 and in renal failure you may be denied dialysis altogether or die while waiting. There are many other examples involving other expensive procedures.

Presently, we have unlimited access here, and high quality; the catch is we also have high cost; there is no denying that. It is a formula as sure as gravity that manipulation of any one will affect the other two. If we lower cost, either quality or access will have to give or perhaps both.

There's a reason every winter many Canadians are having their total joint surgeries done in Phoenix, Az.

After his four year emperical rule the United States will have a government like FRANCE, a medical system like United Kingdom, a military like Haiti,an economic society like Zimbabwae and every job in the country will be UNIONIZED...welcome to Change....

While I agree wholeheartedly that socialized medicine is a flop everywhere that it has been implemented, could reform of the insurance industry and regulation of the pharmaceutical industry reduce health care cost, at the same time maintaining the current quality of care?

The cost of the insurance provided by my employer goes up between 7-10% percent every year and I pay this out of pocket. This increase in insurance spending, in effect eats my annual raise each year and then some. At the current rate, at some point in the future, employees would be paying to work just so they would have insurance. There must be a solution other than socialism.

The nose of the camel.

For those not familar with the names of Charlie Rangle, John Conyers, John Dingel, Maxine Waters, Charles Schumer, Henry Waxman, Jerry Nadler, please take a moment to look up their history and positions. This will tell you what is coming at us.

Sets forth minimum income requirements for eligibility.


This isn't about the average American. This is about the welfare class and illegal aliens.

Pucker up. Health care in Canada AIN'T free. It costs the ones that pay taxes DEARLY! And Grouseman called it mediocre - - - it isn't THAT good here.

The solution is not to have those that pay, either through insurance or cash, for those who don't. That is cost shifting, and that is Communism. From those who have to those who need. Karl Marx at work.

That is our current system. Anyone can show up at an emergency room and get treated. That is the walk in clinc of choice for Illegal Aliens.

Universal health care will ration what they have, which will be bare minimum care. That will be what is Universal. The bare minimum. Want to control costs starting tomorrow? All ou need to do is put a cap on medical torts at $300,000 and stop giving health care to Illegals. They don't get it free back home, so why here?

I agree things are very expensive; one of my daughters who is single does not have a high paying job and her employer unbeknownst to the employees dropped their major medical coverage some time ago. A few employees came down with serious illness in the mean time including a cancer in one case, now with no coverage. Aside from the outrage of this unethical move, small employers are having a very hard time finding policies that they can afford for their employees.

Anecdotally, Medicare, of course a gov't program, is a mess and going broke but I watch my 96 year old MIL going to the doc every month for no good reason; all her infirmities are age-related and not reversible. She of course thinks it's free and looks to it gleefully as a social visit. Multiply this by 75(?) million or so older folks and you can see the utter waste in this system; then for legitimate care they - Medicare - barely pay practitioner or institutional expenses. Statistically, we spend about 90% or so of our health care dollars the last two months of life; sometimes justifiably so, many times not.

I do think the private ins. companies can do much better. They are a huge for-profit beaucracy. As far as the pharmaceutical companies go, they make huge profits but they also spend tremendous amouts in R&D for new drugs. How many new drugs do you think come out of countries with socialized medicine? Not many me thinks.

I'm no expert and I know our system needs fixing but I am sure that the government running things will exacerbate our ills, no pun intended.

edited to say: Hatari is correct. I forgot to add liability insurance costs for practitioners and hospitals and clinics which of course must be past on. This is of course because we've become a society that sues for unpleasant outcomes, whether their is fault or not. The fault lies with an entitlement attitude in our culture and lawyers who feed on this becoming wealthy beyond imagination. That's how John Edwards made his millions suing OB-GYNs for babies that were born with cerbral palsy which was blamed on the delivery technique; this has proven since to be false. This is a huge problem; I know surgeons who pay upwards of a 100k and finally close shop or leave the area they are in - mostly the East and Florida, but it is widespread everywhere.